Stella does tricks

Stella does tricks.

"Stella Marie, you're my star."
--Polly Jean Harvey, O Stella

Number one trick: sitting.

"C’mon Stella…"

Number two trick: Stella’s favorite, play dead. Her head hits the table with an audible thwack, eyes rolling back into her head.

"Stella?"

Her tongue emerges, lolling like the pull drawer of a mail drop, depositing a small item onto the table. A knotted cherry stem.

Stella is drooling on the table.

Thud. The waitress’s fist pounds the table by Stella’s ear. Stella’s head pops up, reanimated.

"You’re scaring the money," the waitress hisses. She wipes the drool from the table and points to a well-dressed four pack of suburbanites, whispering and jabbing towards Stella with closed menus.

"She’s alright!" The waitress yells at the suburbanites.

Stella grins and waves at them. Their menus pop open like umbrellas and form a screen against Stella and her low life friends. They return to the meal selection process.

Stella gives them the finger.

"This place is going to the fucking dogs," Paul says to the boy sitting next to him. "They used to be afraid to come in here. I fucking hate gentrification."

Stella removes her Sharpie and a sticker from her David Cassidy lunchbox. She meticulously etches out judgement, removes the backing, and applies the sticker to Paul. His forehead now reads ‘Hello, I am… a(n) asshole.’

The boy smiles. He’s cute.

She’s almost sure he’s not the one. She wants a chance to be sure. She wants to know if he’s anatomically correct. She opens her lunchbox again, to make sure she brought protection.

Stella heaves a sigh of relief.

She removes another sticker from the lunchbox. She chews her lip and writes on the sticker. Shucking the backing, she applies it to the cute boy.

The boy has officially been labeled ‘cute.’

"I think Stella likes you."

Stella smiles her best ‘I like you’ smile. He’s hooked.

"See?"

"Paul, don’t you have an Assholes Anonymous meeting to go to?"

"Right." Paul drains his beer and sweeps out of the restaurant.

"Hi." Stella speaks, at last. She offers the cute boy her right hand, tattooed with a fading blue rubber stamp. He doesn’t know what to do with it. "Shake," she says. He shakes. Stella withdraws her hand. "I’m Stella."

"I know."

Stella eyes the menu, pretending to give her choice the studied attention that a first-date food choice should have.

"What’ll it be?" (The waitress.)

"Three piece fried chicken." Stella sighs. He hasn’t been here before.

"Brave, stupid, or stoned?"

"Huh?"

"Um," says Stella, squinting, "We’re sharing." Stella hates sharing.

"And a round of Pounders…" He laces her fingers through hers.

"And a double order of fritters… Wait a minute…" She disentangles from the boy’s fingers. Another sticker. ‘I am a saint, please tip me.’ She tags the waitress. "Thanks." The waitress smiles and heads for the back.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" asks Stella, re-entwining.

"Um."

"Do you have a name?"

"Yes."

"That’s good." She pauses. "Do you know what it is?"

"Do you know what it is?"

Stella looks hurt. "Yes."

Stella stares at him. With glasses, Stella has superhuman vision. Cosmo hates glasses. Cosmo is for girls with low self esteem. Stella can leap tall eyecharts in a single bound.

"I like your glasses," the boy says as he leans in. He smells like Irish Spring. "You smell like laundry."

Laundry-scented perfume is a mall item.

"Uh huh." Stella’s not talking; cool kids don’t go to the mall.

"That’s so cool."

She kisses the boy.